


Phil... As in Phil Coulson?

by cutebutpsyco



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. References, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. inaccurances, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Gen, I've watched until season 4, Natasha Romanov has secrets, Phil Coulson lives, Steve Rogers has secrets, but nobody is surpreised by the last bit, not all season 4 i have a couple of episodes to go through
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:47:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24634801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutebutpsyco/pseuds/cutebutpsyco
Summary: “Coulson, Philip,” it was a whisper, while he typed the two words, didn’t even knowing what he was hoping to find. Certainly not the file which opened in front of his eyes. PROJECT TAHITI, LEVEL 8. [...] He took another pen-drive and copied on that one the folder which hid the truth about one of the greatest men he had ever known.
Relationships: Carol Danvers/James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Phil Coulson & Avengers Team
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	Phil... As in Phil Coulson?

**Author's Note:**

> Second short fic asked by tumblr user takemyhand-bitch who I thank from the deepest of my heart.  
> Their prompt (something on which I'd wanted to work on ages) was the following:  
>  _What would happen if the Avengers found out that Coulson was still alive?_
> 
> I don't remember a thing about the first half of Endgame and I really hated that movie so I'm not going to rewatch it anytime sure. Therefore, I just wrote the scenes I remember about in the way I remember them, just pretend it's how they went down on screen too. 
> 
> That said, as always nothing belongs to me, the title is just the stupidest thing ever but it's 2:30 so forgive me, and this work isn't beta-d.  
> Hope you'll enjoy this ride. 
> 
> (In case you are wondering, yes, the Carol x Rhodey cameo was necessary and Clint is not in this one because I remember that he didn't fit in the specific timeline.)

**2014**

Steve Rogers hated technology. That was something he learned from the first moment he opened his eyes to that new world. He didn’t hate when he was back in the 40s, quite the opposite, even if Bucky has always been the person really fascinated with that, Steve understood that it meant modernity, it meant something that was going to change the world and the people’s mentality forever. 

The XXI century, though, relied too much on technology. And the fact that every information gathered by SHIELD was an inconsistent string of codes which everyone can take and use was just the ultimate proof. He didn’t like technology, and yet he had to learn how to use it. He shook his head, eyes fixed on the screen of one of the computers. The plan was easy, take everything and copy it on a different flash drive. All that information would have been released to the public and Hydra would have been defeated once for all. Or, at least, this was their hope. 

And yet, despite everything, despite his numerous years of training, despite him not trusting technology even a bit, Steve was curious. Curious to know what he was going to find once he would have copied everything. Curious to understand the extent of what Fury kept hidden from him and the other Avengers. 

He still remembered what happened on the Helicarrier. How Fury’s secrets almost killed them all, how they brought to Phil Coulson’s death. They might not have a lot of time, but he still owed the agent a promise. He looked at the holographic clock in one corner of the room and then opened the search engine. 

“Coulson, Philip,” it was a whisper, while he typed the two words, didn’t even knowing what he was hoping to find. Certainly not the file which opened in front of his eyes. PROJECT TAHITI, LEVEL 8. He typed Nat’s password into the form which opened a moment later and after a couple of seconds, everything he thought was impossible played in slow motion in front of his eyes. He took another pen-drive and copied on that one the folder which hid the truth about one of the greatest men he had ever known. 

\--

**few months later**

The flash drive flipped once, twice and then three times between her fingers before she convinced looking into it was a good idea. A part of her suspected it wasn’t because if Steve Rogers out of everyone was keeping secrets it could just mean bad news, tons of them. 

She knew she could have done better in just confronting the man and asking him why he hid from her and the world that specific information from the Shieldra mess, but it didn’t matter how poor of a liar the good Captain was, she couldn’t force the truth out of him. So she decided to do it her way. 

“Friday, do I have access to file encryption programs if I’m not trying to hack into Tony’s dirty secret servers, don’t I?” She asked Stark’s AI while she was well aware that she could have probably gotten into whatever was hidden in the pen-drive without having to use Stark Tech. But, once again, when you have the more advanced technology at your disposal, it’s not like you can simply ignore it. Well, you can, if your name is Steven Grant Rogers, but Natasha was a big fan of cutting edge technologies. 

“Yes you do, Miss Romanoff. May I ask which level of encoding you are trying to break?”

“The one set by a man who fought World War II,” She smiled, already sensing the snarky remark that was certainly coming from the AI before plugging the pen-drive into one of the Avengers Compound computers which Friday already turned on. It took her less than a couple of minutes to open the only folder inside the pen-drive and to find in it just two files. 

Considering that these were what Steve deemed to be the most dangerous secrets to release to the public, she expected much more than an old CCTV video and a zipped file named Project TAHITI. “Friday, send everything to my phone and delete every temporary file from the computer. Also, look into the Shield database for whatever you can find related to Tahiti, thanks.”

She didn’t even wait for an answer from the AI and headed back to her rooms. She was curious about the video, but somehow the world Tahiti was burning a hole in her brain, desperately asking for an explanation, and so that was the first file she went to. 

She read it over and over, trying first to understand if it was a real Shield document, then trying to figure out exactly what the procedure was, and searching on every medical period online to understand if the thing was doable. It was only after the fifth time she read all the papers that she focused on the names that every now and then appeared on the document. Most of them were undercover names, some of which Nat could associate with a person she met or whose files she read at Shield Headquarters, others were names of strangers to her and a couple of names of people she knew in her first days as a Shield agent. And then the last of the names hit her hard on her face: Phil Coulson. 

For one second, she thought she’d imagine it. The man who had been a sort of mentor for her, even more than Clint, the man she didn’t even have the time to cry. Alive… Or whatever passed for alive. And, most important, from what the file said, stable, differently from all the other names on the list. 

She could understand why Steve decided to keep that file hidden to the world. Knowing that people could be brought back to life with alien blood and technology could have raised not only ethical problems but also an even bigger mess about who was entitled to use the program. It would become a business, something that either Shield or the world was ready for. But he should have told them. Phil Coulson was the man thanks to who the Avengers were an actual team. His sacrifice was what brought them together and Steve denied them, and especially her, to know that he was still alive. She shook her head, pretending that she wasn’t crying despite the sting in her eyes, and then dialled a phone number she’d never thought she would be using. 

“Jemma Simmons?” She asked once the voice at the other end of the phone answered. “Can you put Phil through?”

\--

**2019**

The headache which was threatening to form around Bruce’s head was killing him and he was trying to focus on the task in front of him. Once the dust settled on Wakanda soil, Okoye and another woman called Nakia informed them that not only T’Challa but also his sister, princess Shuri and their mother dissolved. The General of the Dora Milaje proposed for all the Avengers to stay in Wakanda, but they refused. They needed to go back to the Compound and try to understand what happened in New York and after the assurance that Nakia was going to take care of the Country, they left with one of T’Challa’s jets and the promise of every technical support they might need. 

Which was the technology Bruce was doing while trying to track Tony’s suit. Nobody did know what happened to him after he and the entire world saw him flying in the sky with Spider-Man, following Dr Strange on an alien spaceship. Despite the best technology in the world, he couldn’t find anything, and that was just one part of his and the other Avengers’ job. 

They were trying to keep together a world which was slowly falling apart and, at the same time, find where Thanos went and stop him before he could use the Infinity Stones again. Rhodey and Thor were on that, while Steve and occasionally Natasha were going around the world trying to help as they could even if she was more focused on trying to get in contact with people from SHIELD; people who might have a contingency plan or might help them. Or, Bruce knew she was hoping for that, either Fury or Maria Hill. 

Secretly, despite all the secrets and the lies, all of them were hoping for the same thing. Bruce pushed the palms of his hands against his eyes, hoping that the brighter spots in his eyes would go away doing so. He knew it was useless, but he also knew that he couldn't take the break he needed. 

He was still buried in his notes when he heard the sound of boots against the floor of the lab and turned to look at the person who was leaning against the door. “Found someone?”

“The others are waiting in the main room,” Natasha answered. “Steve and I have to tell you something.” 

Bruce didn’t like that. He knew that, despite everything, Natasha still had secrets she kept for herself, but knowing that Steve knew something too, that was concerning. He was the man who always did the right thing. What could he know he didn’t tell? Banner had known which was one of those things: who killed Tony’s parents. And if that was something else he didn’t share, Bruce was scared about what it might be. So he just nodded, put his computer in stand-by and walked into the main room of the Compound. There, on a coffee table, there was a beeping page and, by its side, a person Bruce knew died a long time ago. 

“Coulson?” He couldn’t help but ask, even if the answer was in plain sight. “How is he…? He’s supposed to be dead…?”

The Shield agent smiled, a smile that Bruce had known in the short period he’d known him. And yet, while he was happy that the man was in the room, breathing and alive, he couldn’t understand how that was possible. Without even looking at the Asgardian God, he could see that he was this close to storming out, and Bruce could understand him as well. The one between battlefield companions was a strong bond for his culture and while Bruce didn’t feel that as much, he felt betrayed and couldn’t understand how Steve and Natasha kept them in the dark about it. Because it was clear, by now, that it was the secret she was speaking shortly before. 

Before Phil could answer, he turned to look at Steve with an accusatory light in the depth of his eyes: “Did you know it?”

“Bruce…” Nat’s voice reached him, but all he could do was shake his head and try to keep his thoughts as clear as possible. It was difficult when you found out people you’d trusted lied to you all along. Even if he would have sided with Steve, when he’d been told about the Civil War, now he was wondering if that was how Tony felt when he discovered about Howard and Maria’s homicide. He would have expected Natasha keeping secrets, they all knew it was in her job description, but from a man who always and only spoke about being honest and telling the truth. 

“Bruce has every right to be angry at both of you,” Thor intervened. “You did know about him, and yet you never spoke.”

He stepped closer to Steve as if considering smashing Stormbreaker against his face. He decided otherwise, probably when he heard the whirring sound of Rhodey’s armour forming around him. “Why don’t we all calm down and let him explain?” The Colonel asked, and all Bruce could do was nodding and looking at Coulson, hoping that his explanation would make sense.

\--

“Phil? Phil Coulson?” Carol’s eyes levelled the man in front of her. She turned just a moment to be sure that Tony and Nebula were taken care of and then went back to look at the agent she met so long ago. She couldn’t help but smile and dragging him into a hug when he extended his hand to take hers. 

“Yeah, it’s me,” He answered, even if it wasn’t necessary. She only had good memories of the man and even though he, differently from herself, did age, he was still the same. It was nice, after all that time she spent far from the Earth, to see a familiar face and… 

“James Rhodes?” Ok, that was someone she didn’t expect at all to meet at the end of (half of) the world. She could physically feel her smile grow larger and was forced not to look at the man in front of her. She was a strong and independent woman who fought against aliens coming from different galaxies, she couldn't blush in front of her crush from the Military Academy, could she? 

“I’ll leave you two,” Coulson said, and then stepped back before Carol could do anything to stop him. As if he needed a justification for that, he indicated the place on the ground yard where she landed the spaceship. “I think I’ll check on Stark.”

“So, how do you know agent Coulson?” James asked her, and, somehow, it sounded as if they didn’t meet each other after more than twenty years. She was glad he didn’t ask her more personal questions, she didn’t need that now. 

\-- 

“I saw you DIE!” Tony really hoped he made his point clear enough. The last thing he wanted to do was to keep thinking about what happened on Titan and yet that was what everyone was expecting from him. Every time he tried, Peter’s last words resonated in his mind and he couldn’t breathe any longer. So he decided that he needed to find something else to speak about. And coming back from death was a fucking solid argument to speak about. 

“Sorry to disappoint,” Phil tried to joke, but one glance in the vague direction of Tony Stark was enough to understand it wasn’t the right approach at that moment. So he nodded. “I did die, I don’t know how exactly they did it, but SHIELD had a program to bring back… valuable assets in case something went wrong,” His eyes ran on Steve and it didn’t take a genius to understand which valuable asset he was speaking about. At the end of the day, Howard Stark created the SHIELD and there was only one person Howard Stark gave a shit about Steven Grant Rogers. 

“I’m glad you are here,” He said and, despite all the venom and the frustration of being the last one to know, he was really glad. “Now, do you have any ace up your sleeve?” 

Coulson smirked and in a flash of blue light, from his right arm appeared a holographic shield similar to Steve’s, but with an eagle in the centre where the original one had a star. “Curious you’re asking.”

“Great,” Tony smirked, it was the end of the world, he had been saved by a glowing woman and found out that Phil Coulson out of everyone was still alive, but at least there was someone who still had a bit of humour in them. “So, every time we lose a guy with a metal arm and a terrible crush on Steve we get a new one into the team?”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, kudos and comments are appreciated!
> 
>  **wanna say hi?** come on tumblr [@myrxellabaratheon](http://myrxellabaratheon.tumblr.com/) and [@ironstrange-is-the-endgame](http://ironstrange-is-the-endgame.tumblr.com/)  
>  **do you want a fic written by me?** Click on my Ironstrange Tumblr and follow the instructions in the pinned post.


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